It is thought that before there may be a breakthrough in solar energy conservation in the South there is expected to be a system that will efficiently achieve both solar cooling and solar heating. To cool with using solar energy one has to achieve relatively high temperature by using absorption refrigeration system such as a gas refrigeration and air conditioning system and may include that made by SERVEL ARKLA Industries and other type gas refrigerator and gas air conditioning systems, which operate off of heat supplies. By heating water to 210.degree. F. then one can operate a commercial model of a solar air conditioning system but it requires collections that will achieve water heated to 210.degree. F., near the boiling point of water. Most of the so-called flat plate solar collectors cannot efficiently achieve this, a significant or commercial degree of efficiency.
By solar collectors concentrating the sun's rays on a smaller area which increases the solar flux and one is able to create higher temperatures. By apparatus and method of the present invention high temperatures are realized.
A breakthrough in solar energy is dependent on economic breakthrough. All types of solar collectors can be contemplated that can be afforded in cost. For example, photo-voltaic systems are so expensive that they cannot be reasonably afforded. Similarly, tremendously large radar dish-type tracking mechanisms can be conceived that are not affordable by the large public. The aim and object of the present invention is to optimize the economics, the materials and the scientific idea and knowledge available to provide a high temperature water by a solar collector for absorption air conditioning and one way to do it is to concentrate the sun's rays and track the sun from east-to-west across the sky. The present invention contemplates an optimum arrangement of tracking and solar concentrating collector systems that minimize cost and other known problems associated with the prior art and known device. One of the known major problems of solar tracking collectors is that they usually have slip joints in liquid flow systems that after continued use commence to realize defects and other leak and result in inoperativeness. In the present system these defects are sought to be eliminated so use of slip joints through which refrigerant or other medium or liquid might soon leak are not included in the system. Basically the system of the invention is to provide a rigidly constructed heat exchanger system in which a movable solar tracking arrangement is provided to focus the solar energy on to the series copper cylindrical tubes formed as heat sinks or black bodies. The tracking arrangement is a collection of reflectors of solar energy or sun's flux and in which the copper cylindrical tubes act as a pivot or fulcrum around which the concentrating reflectors may move so the axis or center of a trough reflector follows or tracks the sun's apparent movement across the sky.
By keeping V-shaped troughs of the solar reflector optimized and generally shallow, at an optimum angle from a center plane of the trough and constructed of a light material such as aluminum, there is ease in providing continuous tracking and mechanically following the sun because of the low movement of inertia or mass.
Thus the invention realizes that the tracking system may use a programmable clock movement and controlled motor to commence the tracking until it becomes inefficient in the evening. Plurality of such troughs are levered together to operate in parallel or in tandem and by the shallow construction of the trough and a 3/8 inch or 1/2 inch copper tubing, all of the sun's light that may enter the trough may end up on a black absorber surface of the copper tubing. The coating on the tubing may be black paint or selective black coating made integral with the tubing, which is better since it does not tend to wear off.
As a matter of fact, the V-shaped trough is sufficiently shallow that were it any deeper the sun's rays would impinge and reflect along the V-shaped trough and reflect out of the V-shaped trough where it would be lost for solar collection. Similarly if the angle of the trough were significantly different than the optimized angle of 20.degree. from the mid-plane of the V-shaped trough, or a total of 40.degree. angle for the reflective walls of the V-shaped trough with respect to each other, then some solar energy would also be lost to the trough.
By use of the V-shaped trough over an idealized parabolic trough, accuracy in directing the V-shaped trough need not be as critical as in directing a parabolic or otherwise configured trough or collector.